Melee Smackdown - Who kicks more butt, PsyWar or Ftr? Prove it!

[Majere]

Warning, Long Post

Race : Dwarf

Racial Abilities
Darkvision
+4 vs bullrush
+4ac vs Giant type
+1 attack vs orcs/goblins

Stats
Stat
Str (14 +3 +6) - 23 (+6)
Dex (11 +1 +6) - 18 (+4)
Con (16 +2 +2) - 22 (+6)
Int (13) - 13 (+1)
Wis (11 +1 +6) - 18 (+4)
Cha (8 -2) - 6 (-2)

Class levels: Fighter 10, Dwarven defender 10

Class abilities:
Defensive stance 5/day (Mobile defence) (+2Str,+4Con,+2saves (resistance),+4 ac (dodge))[3+con]
DR 6/-
+2 on Ref saves vs traps
+4 Ac bonus

Feats
1: Weapon proficiency, Double Sword
3: Iron Will
6: Lightning Reflexes
9: Combat Expertise
12: Power Attack
15: Greater two weapon fighting
18: Improved Critical

1: Weapon focus
2: Ambidexterity
4: Weapon Specialisation
6: Two weapon Fighting
8: Greater Weapon focus
10: Improved Two weapon fighting

Items
Mithril Fullplate (+1)[Heavy Fortification,Ghost touch] -91650
Large Shield (+1)[Animated,Ghost touch] -36170

Double sword (+1)[Vicious,Brilliant Energy,Ghost touch,Defending,Holy]{CI}
(+1)[Vicious,Brilliant Energy,Speed,Ghost Touch] {Ada} - 406050

Gloves Dexterity +6 - 36000
Cloak of resistance (+5) - 25000
Ring of freedom of movement - 40000
Belt of giant Strength (+6) - 36000
Periant of Wisdom (+6) - 36000
Ioun Stone
Dusty Rose - 5000
Pink - 8000
Pale Green - 30000

Silver Sheen (*4) - 1000
Boots of striding and springing - 5500

- 756,370
So

Dwarfy McBeard

Hp - 57.5+68+120 = 245

Saves:
Save
Fort +14 +6 +5 +1 : +26
Ref +6 +4 +5 +3 : +18
Will +10 +4 +5 +3 : +22
+2vs magic
+2vs Poisons
+2Ref vs tra

Ac
Full - 10+9(arm)+3(Shld)+4(Unnamed)+1(Insight)+3(Dex) - 30
Touch- 10 +3(dex) +4(Unnamed)+1(Insight) - 18
Incor- 10+9(arm)+3(Shld)+4(Unnamed)+1(Insight)+3(Dex) - 30
Dr 6/-

Attacks:
+20(base)+6(Str)+1(Weapon)+2(Greater weapon focus)-2(2weapon fighting)+1(insight)- 28

Attacks: +28/+23/+18/+13 - d8+9+2d6+2d6(If evil)
- Penetrates DR/(Magic,Cold Iron,Good)
+28/+28/+23/+18 - d8+6+2d6
- Penetrates DR/(Magic,Adamantite)

All Attack only need to hit touch ac, and suffer no miss chance for hitting incorporeal

Given a touch Ac on the monster of 15:
Average Damage/round with no PA = 173.28 (205.2 vs Evil)
Average Damage/round with OPA = 227.61 (254.4 vs Evil)

Average Damage taken: = 104.0813 -24 +23 = 103.0813

Reasult McBeard wins on second round




Now Dwarfy McBeard is in a party and a high level party which can easily burn a few 1-3rd level spells because lets face it, the mages are using 9th level spells in combat, not 2nd.
(Plus the Psi warrior is allowed to buff so I am too)

So lets have :
Greater magic weapon*2 (20 Hours)
Magic Vestment *2 (20 hours)
Mage armor (20 Hours)
Barkskin (200 minutes)

And if we are moving into a know combat:
Shield of Faith (20 minutes)
Bears Endurance (20 minutes)
Stone Skin (200 minutes)
Death Ward (20 minutes)
Enlage Person (20 Minutes)
Blur (20 minutes)
Heroism (200 minutes)
Spell Resistance (20 minutes)
Haste (20 rounds, cast in combat)
Prayer (20 rounds, cast in combat)

Dwarfy McBuff:

Hp - 57.5+68+140+20 = 285

Saves:
Save
Fort +14 +6 +10 +1 : +31
Ref +6 +4 +10 +3 : +23
Will +10 +4 +10 +3 : +27
+2vs magic
+2vs Poisons
+2Ref vs tra
SR 32

Ac
Full - 10+13(arm)+7(Shld)+4(Unnamed)+1(Insight)+3(Dex)+5(Def)+5(Nat)+1(Haste)-1(size) - 48
Touch- 10+4(arm)+3(dex) +4(Unnamed)+1(Insight)+1(Haste)-1(Size) - 22
Incor- 10+9(arm)+3(Shld)+4(Unnamed)+1(Insight)+3(Dex)+1(Haste)-1(Size) - 30
Dr 6/-
Dr 10/Adamantite (150 Points can be absorbed)
All Attacks suffer 20% misschance


Attacks:
+20(base)+7(Str)+5(Weapon)+2(Greater weapon focus)-2(2weapon fighting)+4(Heroism)+1(Haste)-1(Size)+1(Prayer)+1(Insight)- 38

Attacks: +38/+33/+28/+23 - 4d6+14+2d6(If evil), Penetrates DR/(Magic,Cold Iron,Good)
+38/+38/+33/+28 - 4d6+10 Penetrates DR/(Magic,Adamantite)

All Attack only need to hit touch ac, and suffer no miss chance for hitting incorporeal:

Given a touch Ac on the monster of 15:
Average Damage/round with no PA = 237.12 (269.04 vs Evil)
Average Damage/round with OPA = 349.56 (375.84 vs Evil)

Average Damage taken: =14.091 +23 (23 after stoneskin)

Result McBuff wins on first round.
Monster does not do a single point of damage to Mc Buff, even if it wins initiative. McBuff is only hurt by his own vicious weapon.

These numbers get better in defensive stance, but I think Ive made the point already.

Dont underestimate a well thought out fighter.

Majere

 

[Patlin]

Brilliant Energy: A brilliant energy weapon has its significant portion transformed into light, although this does not modify the item’s weight. It always gives off light as a torch (20-foot radius). A brilliant energy weapon ignores nonliving matter. Armor and shield bonuses to AC (including any enhancement bonuses to that armor) do not count against it because the weapon passes through armor. (Dexterity, deflection, dodge, natural armor, and other such bonuses still apply.) A brilliant energy weapon cannot harm undead, constructs, and objects. This property can only be applied to melee weapons, thrown weapons, and ammunition.
Strong transmutation; CL 16th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, gaseous form, continual flame; Price +4 bonus.

You've got a problem if the hypothetical creature is undead or a construct. Personally, I'd *never* have brilliant energy on my primary weapon.

 

[green slime]

With such an item, the fighter is actually completely incapable of winning.

Well, at least, if the psychic warrior can fly and use a bow.

Bye
Thanee

What Rubbish. Like
1) the psy war KNOWS he has such an item.
2) the such a Fighter doesn't have a bow
3) that was a relevant comment to the purpose at hand... which was party usefulness not one-on-one head-to-head.

 

[Lamoni]

Class levels: Fighter 10, Dwarven defender 10
...
Dont underestimate a well thought out fighter.

Majere

I agree... but a well thought out fighter almost always includes some prestige class and for the purposes of this thread, prestige classes were disallowed.

I don't think that a fighter 20 is useless. Continuing with full BAB and a D10 HD is nice... but prestige classes that offer that plus more are much better. By level 10-12 most fighters will gladly give up any additional bonus feats for any other special ability.

Anyway, we still need a submission of a straight fighter 20... even if it won't be as good as the character you submitted. I was going to just grab an example from a messageboard. The problem is that all the optimized fighters I could find are not straight fighters and I don't want to take the time to build one myself.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

OK, moving back to the original rules of the thread, in the first post, I've made a few changes (revised hp totals etc) on my fighter:

So, let's see how he stacks up with the criteria listed:

* Adaptability: How capable is the candidate of overcoming adverse environmental conditions? What does he do when the enemy splits the battlefield with a wall spell? How does he fare when hit with a meteor swarm or a charm monster?

As a fighter rather than a caster, he has to rely upon party members to deal with a lot of adverse environmental conditions. However, that doesn't mean he's completely helpless.

With a +24 fort save, he can walk four hours through the desert wearing his fullplate before failing his saves on anything other than a 1. With a swim of +23-+25, he can handle falling overboard in the Nyr Dyv pretty or falling into a water filled pit trap pretty well. If he finds himself in somewhere with bad air, he can hold his breath for three minutes. For really extreme conditions like underwater, in space, or in the elemental plane of fire, however, he will need to either rely upon equipment or upon the casters in his party. Then again, so will the rogue. Given the right spells in his ring of spell storing, he can breath water (alter self or water breathing, etc) or do pretty much anything else that might be called for. Since he will usually have Alter Self in that ring, we'll count that. Sure, it's an example of a fighter using items to cover his weaknesses but that's the point: he can (and did) cover those weaknesses.

When hit with a meteor swarm, he'll usually take the 84 hit points of damage and keep going. There's an appreciable chance the enemy wizard would miss his touch AC which varies from 19 to 41 depending upon his use of combat expertise (and is usually around 24-25) though. (Most wizards will probably have a +16 or so ranged touch attack at 20th level). If he's just caught within the area of effect of the meteor swarm, he'll make his save about half the time and take half damage.

If the battlefield is split by a wall spell, he can use his equipment to get around it. (If it's a low wall, he can probably jump or climb over it without too much trouble since he does both very well even in fullplate with an animated shield). This particular fighter can use his ring of spell storing to cast a spell that lets him move through it or use his aportive armor to dimension door to the other side. Unless it's a wall of force, he can also power attack his way through it. (He can bash through pretty much any non-wall of force in a single round with his adamantine halberd and an attack that will AC 5 (like most walls) on a 1 with his 4th attack even when power attacking (19 points when not hasted, 20 points when hasted) and deals 1d10+41-43 points of damage ignoring hardness. Unless the wall has more than 243 hit points in any one place, he can cut through it in a single round (the same time it would take him or the psi-warrior to dimension door across it).

Against a charm monster, he's got a pretty good will save at +19. If one assumes that your standard 20th level wizard has an int of 26 and greater spell focus in whatever he's casting, he makes the save on a roll of 5. Against True Domination or some such 9th level spell, he'll still make the save on a roll of 10 which is decent odds. If he fails, he's got the luck blade that he can use to re-roll the save. Or he can get the party wizard to cast Mind Blank on him, to dispel the effect or the paladin or cleric to cast resurgence (if Complete Divine is available) for another shot at the save. His will save is a weakness but not an insurmountable one.

* Damage output: How much damage can the candidate reasonably expect to inflict on a full attack verses an AC 35 foe with 300 hit points? Assume an attack with a greater than 50% chance to hit does so, and an attack with a less than 50% chance to hit does not. How many rounds does it take you to kill this opponent?

We might want to rethink the >=50% hits, <50% misses rubric in favor of average damage per round--especially because power attack makes that eminently abusable and is a key part of any high level fighter type's actual damage potential.

With the rules listed here:
With boots of speed active: 95%/95%/95%/75%/50% for 5 hits for 142.5 points discounting criticals.
But since one of his class abilities (feats) is Improved Crit, that's not really fair. So, averaging his chances to hit at 82% and giving him a 10% chance to threaten on each hit, he has about a 41% chance of threatening each round. We'll give that an 82% chance to confirm which yields a 33.6% chance of a successful crit each round. A crit deals an additional 57 points of damage and adds 19.1 to his damage/round. So he's really at 161.6 per round.

It takes him two rounds to kill his opponent.

Unless, of course, his opponent is an evil outsider. (Bane probably wasn't a good choice for this comparison but I thought it would be a good decision for the character since evil outsiders are the kind of creature he's most likely to run into where he'll have to get past DR. Since having a holy cold iron or holy silver weapon would only get him past the DR of top-shelf outsiders half the time and, converting the +2 to hit into power attack, bane effectively gets him past 13 points of DR on average (by increasing his damage by an average of 13) and gets him by evil outsiders with DR/epic, I figured that evil outsider bane was a good choice for a character's weapon). The he'll kill the opponent in 1.5 rounds--or, more likely, will still kill the opponent in 2 rounds even though it has DR or will use expertise more and still kill his foe in 2 rounds.

* Damage absorption: How well does your candidate take a hit? How much punishment can he take before he drops? In the same scenario above in which he is making a full attack verses an adjacent foe, calculate the probability that his foe will land an attack on the candidate, assuming the foe's attacks are +35/+30/+25/+20. Consider a probability of better than 50% to be a hit, and a probability of less than 50% to be a miss. Assuming that, how many rounds does it take your candidate to die assuming the foe deals 3d6+20 damage per hit?

Since my last attack would have missed had I been using combat expertise (and in that case, it would take 3 rounds to kill him), I'll just make the BBEG my dodge target and keep using my boots of speed. So, the character is AC 46 with a 20% miss chance due to gleaming armor.

+50%/+25%/+5%/+5%

At an average of 31 points of damage/hit, the foe will take 7 rounds to kill my candidate based on the >=50% assumption and assuming that he can see through concealment.

If the foe can't see through concealment, that's

+40%/+20%/+4%/+4%

In that case, my candidate is invulnerable.

If my candidate uses Combat Expertise, he can easily adjust the total number of rounds he survives any way he feels like. The smart move is probably using combat expertise for 9 points and taking 3-4 rounds to kill the bad guy but being hit only on 20's. Well, actually, if the bad guy is vulnerable to improved trip, my candidate can probably trip him in which case he kills the bad guy in 2-3 rounds and is hit only on 20's.

If we want average damage/round to my fighter, that's 26.35 points of damage per round excluding criticals. If we assume the foe uses natural weapons and has improved crit (for 19-20/x2) that's a 26.9% chance of threatening a crit (it would be 33% but 19s don't hit on his 3rd and 4th attacks) and a 21.25% chance of confirming the crit. My foe's crits add 1.77 points of damage per round against the fighter--assuming he can see through concealment. But wait, I've moderate fortification. Make that 0.89 points of damage/round from crits.

* Mobility: Mobility is often key to winning a fight. How easily does your candidate move around the battlefield?

With a normal move of 20, he's not going anywhere particularly quickly. However, when he activates his boots of speed he's pretty quick. He can also dimension door a couple times per day using items. If he has the right spells in his ring of spell storing, he may be able to fly as well. He'll only have that ability in his ring about 25% of the time though.

Finally, assuming the above hypothetical combat scenario, let's observe how each candidate stacks up at different periods in a day of adventuring.

* First fight of the day: Assume the scenario above is the first fight of the day and all candidates are fresh. Round-by-round, how does he do? Yes, it's likely that any candidate will lose to the foe outlined above, one-on-one, but let's find out how many rounds your candidate will last.

By the rules, listed above, he wins in two rounds and takes no damage.

By average damage/round, he wins in three rounds and takes very little damage.

* Mid-fight of the day: If you cast spells, use power points, or have abilities you can only use a certain number of times per day (such as barbarian rage), halve your available power for this fight (rounding down) and run your character through the blender again. See how he does.

Dang, I can do this all day.

* Last fight of the day: Repeat the same scenario as above, except now your candidate is operating on 20% of his daily allotment of rages, smites, power points, and spells. Additonally, all candidates are at 70% of their normal hit point totals.

I can still do this all day. (I should have used Combat Expertise in the last fight; my foe managed to hurt me). I'm being careful--win in three rounds; no appreciable damage.

* Surprised at night with no armor on: In this, a rat-bastard DM's favorite scenario, you have full power but no armor. You can only use any items you'd reasonably be wearing while sleeping. Of course, your weapon is close at hand. Go to.

This is the bad bit for the character. Depending upon how much he can count on his allies there are a lot of possibilities (all of these assume my shield is close at hand too):

1. No armor on, yeah right. Hey, Mr. Cleric, can you spare a lesser restoration in the morning? Great. OK, I sleep in my fullplate. I win--3 rounds. No appreciable damage.

2. I could sleep in my armor but why would I? Mr. Wizard, can you spare a mage armor; it'll help against incorporeal foes tomorrow too if we run into them. (This can also be accomplished by wearing a 100gp chain shirt nightie). Base AC 35. Dodge+boots of speed makes that AC 37.

90%/65%/40%/15%. 62 points of damage per round from the standard foe. I die in 4 rounds.

I attack at 95%/95%/95%/75%/50% for 143 points of damage/round excluding crits. It would take me 3 rounds to kill my foe (2 w/crits as we explored before). And, of course, in round 1 I need to pick up my halberd, pick up my shield, and stand up. So I win or lose based on initiative and crits.

Of course, that's my candidate being dumb. If he trips his foe, and power attacks for 4, his foe's attacks go down to: 60%/40%/15%/5% and now his foe needs 7 rounds to kill him. His attacks stay at 95%/ 95%/95%/75%/50% for 183 points of damage per round (excluding crits) so he wins in 2 rounds excluding crits--but he needs to stand up and get his stuff in the first round so lets make it three rounds.

Alternatively, my candidate may use spring attack to limit the attacks to 1 per round either way and combat expertise for 18 points. My foe only hits on a 20. I hit on a 14. It takes a long time and it's pretty ugly but I win. If I trip him too, then he doesn't even get to attack me. (Using the 50% rule, I Combat Expertise for 10 points and hit every time; he misses every time. I win).

If we go by average damage/round instead of the >50%=miss, my candidate probably combat expertise for more and take longer to kill his foe but take less damage in return.

3. Dangit, Mr. Wizard, prep me a mage armor tomorrow. Base AC 31. Dodge plus boots makes it 33.

Those four points of AC will sometimes make the difference between life and death for my candidate.

The baseline assumption is my foe hits: 95%/85%/60%/35%. 93 points of damage per round from the standard foe. I die in 3 rounds.

I attack at 95%/95%/95%/75%/50% for 143 points of damage/round excluding crits. It would take me 3 rounds to kill my foe. And, of course, in round 1 I need to pick up my halberd, pick up my shield, and stand up. Since I deal enough damage per round to kill my opponent in 2 rounds with crits, I might win--if I get lucky.

Of course, that's my candidate being dumb. If he trips his foe and uses combat expertise for 4 points, his foe's attacks go down to: 70%/45%/20%/5% and now his foe needs 7 rounds to kill him. His attacks stay the same since the prone penalty to his foe's AC cancels out the combat expertise. He kills his foe in 3 rounds--2 if you include crits but he needs to stand up and get his stuff in the first round so lets make it three rounds.

If his foe isn't trippable, he's in a much worse situation. He can Combat Expertise for 15 points dropping his foe's attacks to +45%/+20%/+5%/+5%--invulnerability in the 50% hit contest. However, his attacks go down to +55%/+55%/+30%/+5%/+5%. He deals 57 points of damage per round and wins in six rounds. But that's just a function of the 50% hit system. Going by average damage/round, he takes: 23.25 damage/round and deals 42.75 points/round (excluding crits). It would take his foe 9 rounds to kill him but he will probably kill his foe in 7.02 rounds. Crits should more than make up for the .02 rounds.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

If one of our item buying sprees is much more min/maxed than the other then it will throw off the totals at the end. I could go through and toss away the str book and pick up a ton of little things here and there that would toss the ball more into the psychic warriors favor, but I was mainly just trying to make an interesting guy who was not min/maxed terribly.

Fair enough. I didn't go through the whole nine yards of min/maxing with my guy either though I did put a bit of thought into how he would deal with things like grapples, improved grab, will and reflex saves, and getting around. Mostly, I just looked through the DMG, Complete Warrior, and X-PsiHB and said, "ooh, this looks neat, how much can I fit under the cap?"

If people think that the psychic warrior is worse off (which just by going through a few cursory monsters in the monstrous manual he is not) then I'll go back and fix that stuff

As for the slotted arguements though, there are quite a few items that should be available for different slots. It is just that wotc is lazy and didnt want to write out more than one item for each. Punishing players when there is a perfectely valid alternative (and if 'mental augmentation' isnt a perfectly valid alternative then something is seriously wrong).

I agree. The fighter really suffered when looking at three slots: the neck, the ring, and the boots. He would have very much liked to have boots of flying (which he could afford if he ditched one of javalins of lighnting). Since the Cape of the Montebank is almost 30k less than adding aporting to his armor, he would have liked a crystal mask of mind armor (+3 to will saves) and bracers of health (instead of the ioun stone of con; he can afford +6 if he ditches the ioun stones (16k) and still have about 10k cash left over for unslotted "boots" of flying. I'll leave him as he is for now though.

If you want to have your robe of the monteback go ahead, but you'll have to get rid of some other equipment for it as you are over the limit [/QUOTE]

Yeah. 755,120gp as he is equipped at the moment. Assuming a few potions (fly, cure serious wounds, enlarge person, lesser restoration), other consumables, and basic gear (dagger, normal javalins, food, rope, pitons, hammer, lantern, etc--maybe even a mighty bow and some masterwork arrows), he's pretty much fully equipped and has spent all his money. While it's not the most min-maxed equipment list in the world, a little kvetching aside, I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Patlin]

I think Scion and Elder Basilisk have both demonstrated it's way too easy to underestimate a 20th level character. The hypothetical monster is inadequate to challenge either class. Didn't we start this assuming both characters would eventually get slaughtered?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Both of us I think benefitted tremendously from facing amorphous foes with no defined abilities other than attack bonus, damage, and AC.

Those attack bonusses and AC are similar to a lot of monsters one would fight as a 20th level character (I'm assuming here, based upon the CRs in the Monster Manual). However, very few CR 20 or so monsters JUST have that attack bonus and AC.

A Balor, for instance, has nearly 300 hit points, an AC of 35 (touch 16) and a full attack of +31/+26/+21/+16 for 2d6+7 (+1 vorpal longsword) and +1 flaming whip at +30/+25 for 1d4+4 and 1d6 fire and a grapple of +36. However, looking at the Balor's strength, those damages are wrong and the sword should be at +15 and the whip at +8.

It also has Damage reduction 15/cold iron and good, darkvision 60 ft., flaming body, immunity to electricity, fire, and poison, resistance to acid 10 and cold 10, spell resistance 28, telepathy 100 ft., true seeing, Power Attack (which would make a noticable difference to the amount of damage the psiwarrior takes unless he improves his AC),

It has the following Spell-Like Abilities: At will— blasphemy (DC 25), dominate monster (DC 27), greater dispel magic, greater teleport (self plus 50 pounds of objects only), insanity (DC 25), power word stun, telekinesis (DC 23--this is a free action due to his Quicken Spell Like Ability feat), unholy aura (DC 26); 1/day—fire storm (DC 26), implosion (DC 27). Caster level 20th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.

My fighter will still cream it in two rounds of a one on one full attack fest (Evil Outsider Bane makes a big difference) but no Balor is going to stick around in a one on one full attack fest with my fighter. A balor will probably try to start the fight with Unholy Aura active--upping its AC and possibly inflicting strength damage on our characters. It may try dominate monster on our characters. It may even deliberately provoke an AoO, hoping we don't have combat reflexes and try to grapple said characters--knowing that it has a significant advantage over either character in a grapple and that we couldn't use our weapons or power attack which makes its DR more advantageous. That would not work very well against my fighter with his +30 base grapple check and, more importantly combat reflexes, but it might work against the psi-warrior and would at least force him to dimension door out of the grapple.

You'll also note that the balor really isn't vulnerable to trips from my character unless my character uses Enlarge Person or Righteous Might from the ring.

The pit fiend is also CR 20, has 225 hp or so, an AC of 40, natural attacks at +30/+30/+28/+28/+28/+28, Improved Grab, Constrict, Regeneration 5, DR 15 silver and good,a fear aura, and a good selection of spell like abilities: blasphemy (DC 25), create undead, fireball (DC 21), greater dispel magic, greater teleport (self plus 50 pounds of objects only), invisibility, magic circle against good, mass hold monster (DC 27), persistent image (DC 23), power word stun, unholy aura (DC 26); 1/day—meteor swarm (DC 27). Caster level 18th.

It may lose the full attack fest with my fighter, I think it wins against the psi warrior (though I haven't run the numbers, all of its attacks are in the "hit" range since they don't suffer iterative penalties. However, it won't trade full attacks. It's quickened fireball will soften us up and it would probably go for the Power Word Stun (which will probably bounce off both characters in round 1 though for different reasons (Mind Blank for the PsiWar and hit points for my fighter)). Then, when it attacks, it's likely to try the Improved Grab to knock our attacks down to size. Against my fighter, that will work against it because all it will accomplish is giving me extra attacks (Close Quarters Fighting). Against the PsiWar, it may force him to dimension door away after taking a pounding from three consecutive grapple+constrict damage checks after the grapple starts. (The first BAB based attack starts the grapple then the next three grapple for damage or to pin). Then again, a different PsiWar could easily have Close Quarters Fighting and Combat Reflexes too and a different Fighter 20 might not have either so that only demonstrates that my particular build deals with Improved Grab better than Scion's particular build. Still, that's worth something.

Actually killing the pit fiend will be a real pain for my character though (Scion's entry just hits it until his wounding weapon destroys all of its con). If we're left to our own devices, my character will need to pull out a silver weapon, use his sacred scabbard to make it good aligned and coup de grace the pit fiend until it fails the save. (Hmmm. I hope he's got a silvered heavy pick somewhere on his person--that could be a DC 164 for save on average power attack: 20 damage with the heavy pick).

A Wyrm black dragon (also CR 20) has an AC of 39 and an attack of +42 and 459 hit points. I don't think either character wants to trade full attacks with it (though spring attack will serve my fighter well as will elusive target when the wyrm decides to power attack).

So, all told, I don't think the numbers Scion uses are particularly poor. They're in the ballpark for physical threats that might be faces as 20th level characters. However, they don't tell the whole story and "dealing with Improved Grab/Grapple and constrict" should definitely be a category in the comparison as should "dealing with multiple weaker creatures," "dealing with common DR," "dealing with regeneration," and "dealing with a foe (such as the black dragon) who outclasses you in damage dealing and soaking it."

I think Scion and Elder Basilisk have both demonstrated it's way too easy to underestimate a 20th level character. The hypothetical monster is inadequate to challenge either class. Didn't we start this assuming both characters would eventually get slaughtered?

 

[Majere]

You've got a problem if the hypothetical creature is undead or a construct. Personally, I'd *never* have brilliant energy on my primary weapon.

Your missing a trick here
"I turn my brilliant energy enchantment off"

Weapon enchantments (the whole lot, flaming, magical, defending etcetc) are command word activated, Id just turn the brilliant energy enchantment off.
Problem solved

Majere

 

[Majere]

(Mispost)